Which have you had better success with? CTR & Earnings. From what I've seen text ads give better payout although image/banner ads has a higher CTR. Unless I'm wrong? Also, do you think Image ads take away from the cleanliness/professionalism of the site?
In my own personal experience depending on the niche text will always outperform image ads. However there are times when I will us an Image ad block because I like the way it looks visually on a site. And once in a while an image ad will score a very high dollar amount payout. I've had experiences where a text click may pay out 20 cents and an image ad on the same page 2.50 per click. You really have to test them and it really depends on the placement, site design, and of course niche. I use the EXACT same template and colors on two totally different niches and one pulls about 7% and the other about 3% click through. So the definitive answer is see what you can make happen for yourself.
For me, image ads do not work at all. CTR and earnings are both less if I use image ads. That is why, in my all sites, there is not a single image ad.
I've had good luck with images but it all depends on the context. Some of my sites are so ugly that image ads actually make them look better. Not kidding either Re: your payout question - You only get image ads (unless you chose to only get them) when they're the highest paying advertiser bidding.
It's depend on what kind of site u have. If ur site is about making money online, it will not be effective to have image ads. I can;t think of what kind of image will it be displayed. Instead, if your site is about a shoe, cell phone, or celebrity gossips, it may be better to have image ads, cos visitor will likely to click a shoe, cellphone, or angelina jolie sexy lips image.
That's right. The niche decides whether it is text or image ads. I have more success with text ads, especially the large rectangle ad formats.
I think Image Advt. is better than Text Advt. If a person see various images in your site then he or she must click on that site which is something interesting. Text link is also good one for adsense but I go for Image link.